


Just a nightmare?

by destielsuperwholockbandhoorah



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 02:24:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2049792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destielsuperwholockbandhoorah/pseuds/destielsuperwholockbandhoorah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would Dean's worst nightmare be?<br/>I took a guess and gave it to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a nightmare?

“No!” screamed Dean, the word tearing through him, ripping his heart into pieces and hurting his throat. “No!” he screamed again, struggling against the force holding him back. But there was nothing he could do. Dean couldn’t even close his eyes as the scene before him played out.

The demon ran the tip of his knife down Cas’s face, leaving a trail of blood. Cas was barely conscious anymore, his face was bloody and his usually crisp white shirt was smeared with blood and dirt and who knew what else. He sat on his knees, held up by the shirtfront by the demon with the blade. It was just toying with him right now, toying with both of them.

“Cas, no!” Dean’s screams echoed off the dark walls, he could hear Cas’s breath, shallow and labored and wet with the blood in his lungs. Dean stared at the scene with horror, straining to pull away from the wall with every fiber of his being. He had to save Cas. He should never have let the ex-angel come on this hunt, he was too inexperienced. He couldn’t let this happen to him. But no matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t able to move so much as a centimeter. Dean’s eyes met Castiel’s.

Cas saw the tortured fear and dread in Dean’s eyes, and Dean saw Cas’s pain. As he was still looking a few moments later, he also saw the look of faint surprise in Cas’s eyes. He heard, very distantly, the wet sickening crunch of metal pulling through muscle. And Dean saw the light in Cas’s eyes begin to drain away.

He had no words anymore. He couldn’t make even a sound.

Suddenly, he and Cas were alone, the demon having vanished. It seems it had accomplished what it came for. Dean was released and fell to his knees, already moving towards Cas. Maybe he could still save him, maybe there was still time. Some random frantic part of Dean’s brain tried to convince him of these things. Cas was falling forward and then Dean was there, catching him before he could fall all the way down.

He noticed with a painfully sick feeling that his hands were already slick with the man’s blood. He knelt and pulled Cas awkwardly halfway into his lap, his head was on Dean’s arm and Dean was trying not to panic or fall apart or cry.

“Cas, Cas! You still with me? Come on buddy. You’re going to be okay.” He took his friends head in his hands and shook him gently, watching the red blood smear across Cas’s cheeks. Already, Dean was soaked with the stuff, but he couldn’t have cared less about that. He ignored everything else, and looked into Cas’s eyes, which were open and slightly glazed over. Those eyes which had so often looked at Dean, with anger or curiosity, but they had always been bright and alive. Cas was strong. Or at least he had been. But now he was human and he was dying, that life leaving him. And it was his fault.

Quietly, almost pleadingly, his voice catching and the tears making patterns in the grime on his face, Dean asked again, “Cas?”

Cas was barely breathing now, Dean could hear the pain and he hurt like he had been stabbed through the heart also. He might as well have. Cas blinked at him, trying to focus through the pain induced haze. “Dean…” he coughed wetly, blood dribbling from his mouth.

“You don’t have to talk. Don’t strain yourself.” Dean pulled Cas closer and held him close, felt the blood soaking the front of his shirt. He felt a hand on his back.

“It’s okay Dean…” Cas’s voice was just past a whisper.

“No, it’s not Cas,” Dean choked, “You can’t go, not you, you can’t leave me too. Please. I need you Cas. I can’t do this without you. I- I…” he couldn’t finish, instead he pulled back from Cas a bit so he could look into his face once more. He could see the tears in Cas’s eyes, to match his own.

“I’m glad you are with me Dean.” Cas managed to say past the blood. Slowly, trembling, he put a hand on Dean’s face and gave him a weak smile. His hand slowly dropped, but he continued to smile for Dean. He watched those green eyes that he loved so much intently, determined that they be the last thing he sees.

But then the breathing has stopped, the smile has slipped a little, and Dean knew Cas was gone, eyes open and glistening, both of their faces wet with tears and blood, and the faint smile on Cas’s face remained. It was a loving smile, an upturned corner of his mouth. But it was for Dean, the last thing Cas had given him. And it broke Dean’s heart.

He felt himself shatter, heard the world breaking around him. He held Cas to him and cried, fully crying like he hadn’t done probably his whole life. An inhuman noise seemed to rip unbidden rom his chest. Dean didn’t move for a very long time.

 

Dean sat up, sweaty and shaking, face soggy with tears and head pounding. The room he was in was dark and he looked around panicked. Where was he? What was going on? Where was Cas? Then he realized it. He had been dreaming. Again. Dean buried his face in his hands, drying the tears with his sheets and breathed deeply, trying to calm down from the all too real seeming dream world. He still wasn’t succeeding when there came a hesitant knock at his door.

The door opened before Dean said anything, and he heard Cas’s voice. “Dean? Are you alright? You were yelling and…” he stopped as Dean looked at him, and Cas saw his eyes, still red from crying and still holding the pain and desperation from the nightmare. “Dean?” he asked, the look of concern on his face deepening.

Dean cleared his throat and took another deep breath, then managed to say, without his voice shaking, “I’m fine Cas, just another bad dream. Go back to bed.”

Instead, Cas took a step into the room. “Another? What’s wrong Dean?”

Dean shook his head, internally cursing himself, and said unconvincingly, “Nothing, just stresses of the job, you know?” Damn that ex-angel and his all too knowing eyes.

Cas squinted at him, like he did, saying, “I don’t think that’s it Dean. You should tell me what’s wrong. I can help.”

“I don’t think you can.”

“Try me.”

Dean sighed, got out of bed, and turned the light on and closed the door. He went over and sat crisscross on his bed. Cas took a chair and moved it so he sat in front of Dean. Dean ran his hands down his face and braced himself. He normally would never tell anyone something like this, but the dream had left him emotionally shaken, and he didn’t think he could hold it in anymore. He needed to talk, however against his nature that might be. So he did, staring stoically at a point on the wall purposefully past Cas’s head.

“I’ve been having these dreams- nightmares- every night for a while now. Ever- ever since the angels fell. Every night someone I care about… they die. And it’s always my fault. It’s been everyone. Ellen, Jo, Bobby, my parents, Lisa, Ben, Sam. All of them, over and over. And every night, without fail, the dream is worse, like they’re slowly putting on more pressure, trying to see how much it takes to break me. It’s always horrible and bloody and when I’m there it feels so real, I never know it’s a dream. There’s nothing I can ever do to stop it.” He finishes and has to catch his breath in an effort to not let loose and cry again. Jesus, he was turning into an emotionally wrecked teenage girl.

Cas is silent a moment, like he’s taking it all in. “I’m sorry Dean.” They sat there for a minute or so, then Cas thought of something. “Dean, you were yelling, that’s why I came in here. You’ve never yelled before tonight.” He doesn’t want to poke at it, but he feels like he needs to know.

Dean ran a hand through his hair. He avoided looking at Cas. “Well tonight was… different.”

“How so?” Cas barely dared ask.

“This time, it was…” he hesitated, then resigned himself. “You. It’s never been you before.”  
“But why-?” Cas looked confused.

“It was really bad, Cas. It was so bloody, so realistic,” Dean stopped and swallowed. “I could feel it, I could smell it. I can still almost smell it.” Dean’s voice shook, but whether it was anger or grief or something else, Cas couldn’t tell. “And all that blood.” Dean his face in his hands and said, nearly inaudibly, “It was the worst one yet.”

Cas said nothing, just got up and sat next to Dean on the bed. If Dean had been watching, he would have seen the indecision flicker across the man’s face.

“You know it wasn’t real Dean. I’m real, I’m not dead. Sam’s here, upstairs. We would never leave you.”

Dean looked up sharply, hearing his own dream words echoing in his head.  
Cas looked apologetic. “I heard you say that Dean.” He put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. “It’s okay Dean.”

At those words, Dean felt like his heart was breaking again, and felt the tears so close to falling again. He leaned forward and impulsively hugged Cas. The real Cas. And this time his body wasn’t slick with blood or growing cold. He didn’t wince in pain when Dean touched him. Rather, this Cas was warm and solid, dry of blood, and this Cas moved into his touch. This wasn’t a dream.

Dean felt the warm, dry Cas in his arms, felt the strong unshaking arms of the other man around him. He pressed his nose into Cas’s neck, not caring about how he’s crossing a bit out of friend zone territory here, and smiled a bit as Cas’s hair tickled his cheek. He was finally able to relax. The hug wiped away the last traces of fear and pain Dean had been feeling, leaving him only with a warm fuzziness. He didn’t think he would ever let go of Cas, he would definitely never let anything happen to him.

“I’ll never leave you Dean. Please believe me.” Cas’s voice is quiet in Dean’s ear.

“I know, Cas. Thank you for coming in here.”

“I’d do anything for you, Dean.” Cas says it like it’s obvious, but the words send shiver down Dean’s spine, because he knows Cas means it. Completely, and the reverse is true as well.  
Cas shifts slightly, and then Dean feels a soft and tentative kiss pressed against his neck under his ear. Without hardly thinking about it, instead of flinching or pulling away, he hugs Cas closer to him. He’s not sure how long they sit there, he doesn’t really remember when he lays down to sleep again. And he isn’t sure how exactly Cas ends up staying. What he does remember is wanting Cas to stay, and the relief he feels when Cas flicks off the light and lays down next to him. 

For the first time, and by far the last time, Dean falls asleep next to Castiel, their arms wrapped around each other and their breath mingling in the small space between them. Dean’s nightmares don’t stop, but now Cas is there to wake him if he notices Dean tossing and turning in the night. All it takes is Cas pulling Dean closer and pressing a kiss to his forehead or his lips to calm him.

Things are far from perfect, but now they have each other to ward away the nightmares, both in their heads and the real world.


End file.
